What was the response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster? We don’t know.

TOKYO (majirox news) — It has recently come to light that the task force managing the Fukushima nuclear disaster has no records of its meetings.

The Japanese Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency, which was acting as the secretariat of the task force, failed to keep minutes of the meetings, whose subjects included the delineation and definitions of evacuation areas, policies regarding decontamination and regulations regarding agricultural produce.

The task force was headed by then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who reportedly identified Fukushima as the major cause for concern within hours of the temblor, and who inspected the plant on the next day and forced the power company to start the cooling process.

The person in charge of producing the minutes was reportedly “too busy” to carry out his designated function, and is currently being questioned by the Cabinet Office about his failure. Nor is this the only area where records of discussions are missing. The TEPCO/governmental task force, which was also discussing responses to the disaster, is also lacking minutes of the meeting – this omission is also being investigated by the Cabinet Office.

Japanese law (the Public Records Management Act) requires minutes of such meetings to be kept, meaning that those who failed to do keep records of what was decided, future actions to be taken and responsibilities assigned are in breach of the law.